According to a basic Buddhist insight, the mind is essentially luminous and knowing. Therefore, emotional problems do not reside in the mind’s essence; counter-productive attitudes are temporary, superficial, and can be removed. If distressing emotions such as anger were in the very nature of the mind, then from its inception, the mind would always have to be angry. Obviously, this is not so. Only under certain circumstances do we become angry, and when those circumstances are not present, anger is not present either.

14th Dalai Lama

from the book The Heart of Meditation: Discovering Innermost Awareness

translated by Jeffrey Hopkins


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